Impressions from snowless Fürth/Bavaria in December 2016(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

After midnight and just before going to bed I often read T. Austin Sparks’ daily devotional. Sometimes his words strike me so that I need to copy and paste them, knowing that might turn out another blog article, although I rarely know what I am going to write about in detail. From my own experiences, I can confirm that these days when I am hindered through people, pain or problems to spend more time alone with God than usual (i.e., two or three times a day), my mental condition is not the best. I am more vulnerable, impatient, more easily discouraged and I am easily stressed out as well. Also, it is more difficult for me to discern God’s voice from others AND to finally obey His leading, too.

Before starting my day in the morning I stay in bed in order to pray, keeping my eyes closed, talking with God and/or Jesus in my spirit. Just for clarification, it depends on Who is ‘available’, that is, Whom I am able to perceive. At times it is only one of them, sometimes it is Daddy and Jesus. Sometimes God is immediately there, sometimes I need to wait since He is Lord (not me), which can be pretty difficult because our thought life normally revolves around how to set our daily agenda. Once we have been caught up in our plans and thoughts about the ‘whos’ and ‘hows’ and ‘whens’, it is very difficult, though not impossible, to focus our eyes of the heart on God again. In fact, He is so eager to share HIS plans and ideas with us while we tend to tell Him our plans and hope He might like them more. 😉 I do know when I have prayed and can get up while staying His presence, my day will be more heavenly since adverse circumstances do not touch me that deeply. Quite the contrary if I could not pray! These days where I cannot immediately start with God are always full of struggles because the voice of the flesh is much louder than the Holy Spirit’s small and still ‘nudges’ from the inside. Instead of telling you more about my own prayer life and its implications here, I would suggest to read TAS devotional first.

In the morning, long before sunrise, Jesus went to a place where He could be alone to pray. (Mark 1:35 GW)

Impressions from snowless Fürth/Bavaria in December 2016(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

I am quite sure that I have the agreement of most of the Lord’s people when I say that one of the most difficult things, if not the most difficult thing, is to be able to get to prayer and give ourselves to prayer. When we contemplate prayer, we meet a host of unsuspected and unforeseen difficulties which suddenly rise up as ambush forces breaking out upon us. Anything to prevent prayer! I am not saying something that you do not know, but I am saying it in order that you may recognize it clearly, definitely and deliberately, and face the fact that it is not just ordinary circumstances, but a designed, well-laid scheme of the enemy to prevent prayer. The enemy, instead of objecting, will promote occupation with a thousand and one things for the Lord if thereby he can crowd out prayer. He does not mind how busy we are in the Lord’s work, nor how often we are found preaching, conducting meetings, and doing the many-sided work of the Lord, as we may call it. He knows quite well that all the work for the Lord which is not founded upon triumphant spiritual prayer will count for little or nothing in the long run and will break down. I say that he does not mind you working. Work for the Lord as hard as you can, but if you leave out prayer you will not accomplish very much. One of the subtleties of the enemy is to get us so busy, so occupied, so much on the go and on the rush with – as we think – things for the Lord and the work of the Lord, that our prayer is cramped and pushed up into a corner and limited, if not almost entirely ruled out; and the Lord will never accept the excuse: “Lord, I am too much engaged in Your interests to pray.” The Lord never favors an attitude like that….

Impressions from snowless Fürth/Bavaria in December 2016(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

Immediately you begin to contemplate or purpose a fuller prayer-life, the enemy launches a new scheme for keeping you more busy and occupied, heaping up the work and crowding in demands so that you will have no time or opportunity for prayer…. But we must recognize this: that the enemy will construct his best arguments about responsibility, duty and conscience to stop us praying, and there is a place where, if we see prayer is utterly ruled out, or brought down to such a limited place that it is completely inadequate for a life of spiritual ascendancy and victory, we have to say: “Lord, I am going to trust the responsibility with You while I pray, that You will not allow my breaking away for this time to have detrimental results, and that You will protect this prayer-time – which I seek for Your glory – from the inroads of the enemy.”

Just today I realized that it is no real problem to discern the Christian who is used to praying from the one who is not used to praying. Even as I checked out a blog I had not visited for a long time, I saw that nothing had changed there. After only reading a few lines, I felt so uneasy that I left this blog quickly. Indeed, people can merely speak and write from their old unredeemed heart if they are not used to expose their inner darkness to His light. They keep dwelling on their past and the wounds they received, they keep looking at their sins or the sins of others, and most of the times they cannot see that they live in a PRISON of negativity although Jesus really came to set the captives free! These believers remain unchanged and cannot help but think and act in their old soulish ways. Dear reader, I believe this is not the way it should be. A Christian disciple who does not grow spiritually cannot follow our Lord’s voice if it is not heard daily. Or can you and I follow someone in the darkness when He alone has the light and we do not stick close to Him? Brothers and sisters, if we avoid knocking on heaven’s door and drop prayer because it can be boring at times until the Lord shows up (yes, these times do exist), we will be easily led astray by Satan and might eventually confuse his voice with God’s. I think you and I don’t want this, do we? Now I want to share a quote from my fellow countryman Martin Luther with you. He said,

Impressions from snowless Fürth/Bavaria in December 2016(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

As exaggerated as these words might seem at the first moment, they are true. Prayer makes all the difference between these believers who are like “children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes (Eph 4:14 ESV) and those “who know their God […,] stand firm and take action.” (Dan 11:32 ESV) It is only the latter group that will be able to really do what God wants and to draw distinct boundaries between us and those worldly and evil spirits that continually try to pull us away from God (‘nice’ people, friends, family, and relatives included here). Actually, we could listen to countless sermons, memorize Bible verses, again and again, read all commentaries available, nonetheless, we might miss out on the most important thing: it is prayer alone that connects us to the heart of God!

City Hall Fürth, December 2016 – Photo by Susanne Schuberth

If we do not pray, we have no real love relationship with Him. The Scripture from Daniel speaks about those people who KNOW their God. We cannot follow God’s leading and walk in these “good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10 ESV) unless we have come to know God and His heart for us and others, too. Just allow me a comparison with marriage here. Imagine someone has a difficult spouse. In order to avoid confrontation, they keep writing one another short letters in which they describe what they did and what they were going to do instead of ever asking for one another’s advice by talking problems over and working through them.

St. Michael, Fürth/Bavaria, December 2016(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

Sometimes I think that we tend to hide ourselves from His all-knowing presence due to a wrong fear of an image of God on which we have projected our own negative experiences with man and the losses in our lives we have not accepted yet. If that is true, Satan has won the game as TAS so well stated in his devotional. Let us not stop asking God to help us pray, dear brothers and sisters, since we do not know how to really do it unless the Holy Spirit guides us (cf. Rom 8:26 ESV).

As I just finished this blog post and checked my Google inbox, I saw that Michael Clark posted a new blog article on the implications of having a loving relationship with God and with one another (read fellowship). It seems to me that we cannot get there without having become people of prayer before. I do hope you take the time and check out Michael’s very inspiring entry as well. If you like, see God’s Wonderful Expanding and Abounding Love.

Impressions from snowless Fürth/Bavaria in December 2016(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

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43 thoughts on “Prayerlessness profits nothing”

Very true Sue–God is now our Patron because of our Birth into His Kingdom and when we have issues in our daily life to deal with we need His wisdom to know how to handle them–I have one going on right now–I got a call from the Daytona Beach,Fl. police that my 84 year old Mom got lost and they had to put her in a cab to get her back home–He asked me if she was suffering some sort of old age mental problem to which I said yes-probably—He suggested that we need to do something with her–now I need Dads wisdom to know what to do—So what do I do?–Does He want me to go to Florida to help her or will He let my daughter Daphne take on the obligation to maybe put her into an assisted living place–To be honest I told Father that I really do not want to go back to Florida but not what I want but what He wants–trusting in my own wisdom would be nerve racking but I know His decision will be the best–where would I be without prayer and support from fellow Christians–Oh Lord I would need a joint or a drink!

Oh, dear Ken, what a sad and difficult situation for you and yours!! 😦 You are all in my heart and prayers, my brother! May God keep you and show you clearly which decision will be the best. If our thoughts about a particular decision and its implications for our life are accompanied by His peace, we can be sure of having His approval as Chambers in one of his devotionals lately wrote. I hope that helps a bit. Just think it all through, again and again…and if you cannot get rid of this restraint in your heart, it is most probably not His will.

You are most welcome, dear Ken. I have already prayed for some time for you, your mom, Daphne and all others who might be concerned. I could not hold back the tears and I really felt that God loves you all so much!!! ❤ ❤ ❤

Dear Susanne,
Thank you so much for sharing your insights on prayer and how your own experiences line up with what Austin-Sparks wrote about his own. His description of the way the enemy works to distract us from meaningful prayer and fellowship with our Daddy and Jesus really fits what I have gone through all my life. Yet, it seems that if we have His love filling us up we can’t help but want to spend time with Him. But which comes first? Do we pray and then get filled with His presence and love or does He fill us with His love so we will want to pray? I think that the former is the case and the latter is the fruit for “He is a rewarded of those who diligently seek Him.” I can say that my own recent break through has come from following your example of spending time with the Father and the Son, becoming ONE with them first and staying in that unity each day. You have shared your life with me in your blog articles which you have always been so open in and as we have corresponded and it truly has been an inspiration to pursue our Daddy and Jesus with all my heart.

Dear sister, thank you for the ping-back on my latest blog entry. I will do the same for yours because it fits so well as to how we come to this place of having hearts enlarged by Him and overflowing with His love which fills these clay vessels with the treasure of God, His very own Son.

Thank YOU sooo much, dear Michael, both for the pingback and for your encouraging words! 🙂 I wholeheartedly agree with your deliberations on what comes first. I think when we come to know Jesus, God gives us ‘gratuitously’ a certain foretaste of the things to come (like milk for a baby). However, as He wants to see us grow in Christ, He puts us back on our feet and tells us to walk. He does so because He wants us to seek Him first so that we can receive this reward we only get secretly when in our prayer closets with Him (cf. Mt 6:6). You are so right with your Bible quote, God is always a rewarder of those who continually seek Him!

yes it is. Yesterday I turned off the alarm and tried to pray, try being the key word. I know I tried for 2 hours as next thing I knew it was 9 and I turned off the alarm at 7. I may have falling a sleep a few times while praying. Has that ever happened to you?

Dear sis,
I’ve had powerful prayer times before in my spiritual history, but these last three months have been an intensive course in prayer and God has opened up His treasures for me. As you know, not all has been nice. Like the Samaritan woman, in my conversations with Jesus I’ve had many “Go call your husband and come back” moments. 😦 But if hurt comes before healing, it is worth it!

What you said about us avoiding prayer because of wrong images of God is so true! My idea of God frowning on my utmost imperfection was a big issue. I’ve also been hindered in “church” worship times because often I felt I couldn’t really sing the songs, because my life was so far removed from the wonderful lyrics that I preferred to stay silent most of the time rather than lie to God about how I loved Him! So my prayerlessness often meant, “I don’t want to spend time with you because I don’t trust you! You’ve often given me such hard times that I don’t get it!”

I have also avoided prayer because of what it would expose in my soul. At times, God’s presence would fall, especially when His Spirit caused me to intercede for someone, and when He would share His heart with me, He’d cause me to pray with such poignancy and even heartbreak, that after I would stay sensitive and sort of melancholic all day long. I guess it was uncomfortable because it would be like the peeling of an onion. My outer shells would be removed, so this hurts. I still experience many tearful moments when my husband and I pray together, but I guess I’m more used to it or have fewer layers in the onion or a less hard shell. 😉

You’ve also reminded me of a dream our son had recently. When he woke up, he told us, “I told the lady not to give us old bread.” Such a powerful picture. When we share yesterday’s words or revelations, we’re sharing old bread. That’s why Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us TODAY our daily bread.” Meaning, EACH DAY we should be asking Him for His presence, for His heavenly manna.

BTW, I loved your pics! The first one so reminded me of Bariloche and other places in our beautiful Patagonia. There’s also a city in central Argentina, Villa General Belgrano, with a strong German influence, and a lot of the buildings look like those in your pics! I may share a few pictures with you if I find them, so you’ll see what I mean! Thank you so much for your transparency, dearest. 🙂

He (her son) woke up, he told us, “I told the lady not to give us old bread.”

“That’s why Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us TODAY our daily bread.” Meaning, EACH DAY we should be asking Him for His presence, for His heavenly manna.”

That was a great point you made, Carina. Thanks. Yes, we need to go each day and get our daily bread from the Bread of Life who comes down from heaven or we will only have old wormy manna to give others. There is a saying, “If you do not speak people might think you are a fool, but if you open your mouth in haste you will remove all doubt.” Let us wait upon the Lord, always.

The animated ball offers exactly the idea I wanted to express! 😉
You know, I have a school of laughter in my own home. One of the reasons I married my husband is that he could make me laugh like no one else did! 12 years into marriage, we still find reasons to laugh together, and that’s helped us ease so much of the tensions, challenges and heartaches of life.
Seven years ago, an accomplished comedian was born. Samuel has been amazing with his very funny (comic and a little weird, too, like mine!) personality. Sometimes when I feel overwhelmed by my wretchedness, all it takes is his contagious energy and his creative and comical manners to see that I have a lot of blessings to count!

A joyful heart is a medicine. I am glad to hear that your family is so uplifting for you. Like Paul said, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” (Phil 4:8-9, ESV2011)
Blessings to you in Him, dear sister,
Michael

Thanks to you both!
I have learned to count my blessings, and there are very many! My mum told me the other day that when she heard what happened to my cousin, she was struck with the thought that it could have been me or my brother. Indeed, just the fact that we’ve survived is a lot, but being able to thrive in spite of the predictions of men who said it was impossible is even better.

God has consistently proved to us how greatly faithful He is when we seek Him.
Psalm 124 reflects my experience very well, except that where it says “men” I understand, following Paul in Ephesians 6, that there are forces of evil behind our human attackers.

“If it had not been the Lord who was on our side,”
Let Israel now say—
“If it had not been the Lord who was on our side,
When men rose up against us,
Then they would have swallowed us alive,
When their wrath was kindled against us;
Then the waters would have overwhelmed us,
The stream would have gone over our soul;
Then the swollen waters
Would have gone over our soul.”
Blessed be the Lord,
Who has not given us as prey to their teeth.
Our soul has escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers;
The snare is broken, and we have escaped.
Our help is in the name of the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.

God indeed has compensated with joy and laughter all the tears that used to be my bread night and day. Each day I receive His healing. Sometimes He needs to point at an old wound to show me those areas that weren’t healed properly before. But His love endures forever.

And yes, I’m learning to focus more on the “whatever is true”. Interesting, Paul begins with “true”. Many of my hurts stem from believing lies people (and the accusing demons through their words) told me about myself. Healing begins when we come to God for HIS answer to the “Who am I?” question. And His answer is, You are my dearly beloved child!

“Indeed, people can merely speak and write from their old unredeemed heart if they are not used to expose their inner darkness to His light. They keep dwelling on their past and the wounds they received, they keep looking at their sins or the sins of others, and most of the times they cannot see that they live in a PRISON of negativity although …” – Susanne, I do talk about dark experiences on my blog. I’m not one of those people you are referring to, am I? This really jumped out at me. Are you saying we must never talk about the things that happened to us? Old wounds? Old scars? An interesting point of view!

Noooo!!! Not at all, dear Marie! ❤ Do not worry, this was not written about you or other victims who have been wounded beyond imagination! I just had to reread this older blog post of mine until I remembered of whom I talked there. I was thinking of several people, but of one blogger in particular, who keeps attacking those groups of people of whom they think they are their enemies. Their past wounds cannot be compared with what you and other abuse victims went through, my dear sister. It is clear to me (speaking from my own experience) that we cannot get rid of our past unless God sets us free and I would be the last to blame someone who had to undergo such torment you and others had to… 😦

As for me, I came to know Anna, for instance, as I had published a blog post about sexual abuse and rape (my experiences) on my blog here, too. I had a lot of responses, but alas, also negative reactions, that is, the wrong spirits (in men) were drawn to my blog as well. So, I finally deleted this article with the title “The Burden of Falso Guilt” but I saved it in a Word doc.

I believe there is a time for everything, a special time to talk about the wounds we received and the scars they left in our souls (and maybe in our bodies, too). There is also a time to be angry and to let it all out, so to speak. If we do NOT talk, the pain goes deeper and deeper into our own soul (depression comes from suppressed feelings, I believe). I for one got pretty cautious with whom I talk about these things I experienced since it is so easy to be triggered by someone who has not had similar wounds. And afterwards you feel even more wounded due to other ppl’s ignorance and insensitivity.

“I was thinking of several people, but of one blogger in particular, who keeps attacking those groups of people of whom they think they are their enemies.” I’ve seen this often. Many get into “apologetics ministries” because they think they can help the Lord open people’s eyes to what previously blinded them. Sadly, in many cases the root of bitterness is so evident that all the good things that could arise from such a ministry are buried under tons of murmuring and sometimes downright hatred.

It’s great to try to help other people not to fall down into the same traps as we have. But if we don’t forgive the people who deceived us, if we don’t let go of the hurts, if we don’t have a certain degree of mercy towards our enemies, we cannot really help others overcome their own hurts. All we can do is vent. And though venting can be good, it can also be bad if we strengthen each other’s bitter roots by saying how bad other people are.

I am acutely aware of the fact that, just as I have been deeply hurt by others, I’ve also hurt other people deeply. That humbles me. I’m in no sense better than others. If I have any holiness, it’s the result of God’s grace working in me. A God who has been amazingly patient with a very unworthy and rebellious sheep.

Of course, my sister, we hurt others, too. But I think there is a big difference if we look at abuse victims, especially at those who were abused in childhood. Here we ought to be very cautious to not touch their wounds. Child abuse is so cruel! 😦

Yes, it was such a continued ‘venting’ blog I was referring to. There is always hatred involved and those who seem to get help there, might get affected by this course of spreading hatred instead of searching for God. That was my concern. From my own experience I can say that forgiveness is not the starting point, particularly if the wounds were VERY deep. Forgiveness happens by God’s grace (!) at the end of a long process when loving our enemies begins, too.

I suffered great physical and verbal abuse in my home environment, and I know how deep the wounds get. To this day, my relationship with my father is not completely healed, partly because he is still quite unaware of how much damage he has caused (and has justified the damage he inflicted because I was so rebellious). The other day we were discussing a case of young people who died after consuming ecstasy drugs and he said, These drugs should be provided free, so such idiots can all die! I was shocked. I told my mother, who was in a sense agreeing with such statements, that we have no idea of the suffering young people or even older people can go through. The full weight of my outrage came later at home when I thought, I should have told him, Well, perhaps those people take drugs because their dads told them they are the black sheep of the family, like you did with me! Perhaps they’ve never overcome being thrown to the floor and kicked!

Yes, forgiveness can be a very long process. I still carry some baggage from my past. I have some hidden bitterness still needing healing. Understanding and forgiving bullies at school was relatively easy. Understanding misguided church “leaders” was harder, but still doable. Understanding my own dad rejecting me and calling me all sorts of names just because I couldn’t be quiet, that has been the effort of a lifetime. And it all boils down to, What kind of God do I believe in? A God who accepts me when I do the right things and rejects me when I don’t? A God who calls me a black sheep like my natural dad did? Grasping how different God’s love is is the most difficult faith issue I’ve had to face.

Dear Susanne, thank you so much for explaining what you meant by that statement. I’m so sorry to hear that you suffered such terrible abuse and I sincerely hope those wounds and scars are healing. Of course, the type of abuse we have suffered has a very negative and almost crippling effect on survivors, but with God’s love and care we are able to rise above all the negativity and aspire to live a life that is better than we could ever imagine.
Your words are compassionate and empathic as one speaking of this type of abuse who has had to bear these terrible experiences.
Your explanation has helped a whole lot. Don’t worry. I was not offended, just curious to understand the point you were trying to make. Much love, dear friend.
Marie XxX

You are most welcome Susanne. I’m so glad we got this opportunity to speak, as I had noticed that you had ‘liked’ some of my comments on Anna Waldherr’s blog.
May God continue to bless you richly and may He give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways.
Love,
Marie
XxX

Thank you, sis! I find that God’s love has been providing comfort and healing ever since I knew He existed! Being a highly sensitive person, I have always been more aware of pain than other people, and that’s part of the reason I was a rebellious child and a defiant teenager. I simply reacted to perceived injustice, such as my dad’s extreme overreactions over minor matters.

Over time, I have come to see this increased awareness as a blessing and a gift. I have come to see EQ is more important than IQ, and have directed my efforts in asking God to teach me how to be more empathetic, more intuitive, more understanding of other people’s struggles. I focus on the What for?, not the Why?. I have found the amazing power of resiliency. I am much stronger because of past and present pain. Not strong in myself, but in God. To Him all the glory, because as He heals me, He also makes me a vessel for the healing of others. And that is a great gift!

That is interesting, Carina. I have been an overly sensitive person all my life, too. Although I was neither a rebellious child nor did I (openly) rebel in my teen years, it seems to me that my rebellion was more internal in my mind and feelings while yours might have turned out more external as it seems. But it is the same thing, I guess.

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